Religious Education, Identity and Mission
It has been a wonderful week of celebration, starting with our Mother’s Day Liturgy on Wednesday. The entire College gathered together with over 400 guests to celebrate all our significant females. The Gospel we listened to celebrated the news that Mary was pregnant with Jesus, and her cousin Elizabeth was pregnant with her child who will become John the Baptist. In the passage, Mary said, ‘My spirit rejoices’, and it is this rejoicing of women in their children and the rejoicing of we children in our mothers that we celebrate. Although our own births were probably a bit more ordinary than the births of John the Baptist and Jesus, it is still true that every child’s birth is a witness to the miraculous and awesome power of God. It is through our mothers that God works this particular miracle.
The celebrations continued with Blessed Edmund Rice Feast Day. Our first K-12 mass with guests in the College hall was a beautiful way to acknowledge the many gifts of Edmund. We are fortunate at St Francis College to be able to experience and respond with the same courage and generosity to the call of Christ to the marginalised and outcast as Edmund did by participating in many social justice activities as part of our celebration. Many thanks to our guest speakers and guests including Chris Nolan from Caritas Australia, David Gearin and Matthew Turner from the Catholic Education Office Wollongong, Bonnie Faulkner from Eddie Rice Camps and Sharlene Gelle from St Vincent De Paul. Alongside our staff, these wonderful guests spoke with students about what service and outreach looks like in our community. Our senior classes and Year 8 packaged hundreds of snack packs and hygiene packs to donate to the Nagle Centre at Campbelltown. We are fortunate to be able to serve others just like Edmund did.
